The Woman says
At least he has a heart. It’s only that he feels he must be witty. But you–you’re not going to let us just go away again, are you? He gave up his oyster bed, and this boy didn’t even wait for the dance, and me–I gave up my tombstone. Yes–tombstone. It had always been a saying in our family– “He won’t even have a stone to mark his grave.” They said it so much and so solemnly that I thought it meant something. I sew–plain sewing, but I’ve often said to myself– “Well, at least I’ll have a stone to mark my grave.” And then, there was a man who had been making speeches to the miners–I live in a town in Idaho–and he had your magazine, and he left it in the store, and the storekeeper said to me, when I went there for thread– “Here, you like to read. Don’t you want this? I wish you would take it away, because if some folks in town see it, they’ll think I’m not all I should be.” He meant the cover. So I took it home, and when my work was done that night, I read your wonderful words. They’re like a spring–if you’ve lived in a dry country, you’ll know what I mean. And they made me know that my tombstone was as dead as–well,
(with a little laugh)
as dead as a tombstone. So I had to have something to take its place.